Da Capo
by Valhalla
Summary: "With her, there are ways he shares his life he never thought he would." Daniel and Charlotte get a second chance. Spoilers up to finale. Dan/Charlotte; Eloise, Miles, Desmond/Penny.


**Title: **Da Capo  
**Characters/Pairings: **Daniel/Charlotte; Eloise, Miles, Penny/Desmond  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary: **_With her, there are ways he shares his life he never thought he would. _Daniel and Charlotte get a second chance.  
**Word Count:** 2,871  
**Spoilers:** Up to the finale.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine.  
**A/N:** This operates on the theory that characters from the church scene chose when to go, hence a bit of a time lapse.

* * *

_da capo_, def.: return to the beginning.

* * *

It's long after the last chords have faded, humming on the air and then gone (one thing he's always loved most about music, releasing melodies and harmonies into the universe, wondering where they've carried), that he sees her, still lingering along the edges of the tent planted on the museum's front lawn, perched along the edge of one of the white folding chairs, cutting a static, solitary figure like a misplaced note against the bustle and movement of cleanup. Just watching, all red hair like waves and eyes sharper and bluer than he can even believe and the curves and slopes of her body are something familiar, something he could trace under his fingers -

He doesn't have the first clue what to say, so he steps forward, hat in hand and tie a loose knot around his neck, all nerves; "hi."

Her smile blooms and grows, stands to greet him with purse clutched against the fronts of her thighs - "hi yourself."

There's a deep inhale where the breath rattles in his lungs and _listen,_ he rushes out, graceless, _would you like to, uh, do something, get a coffee or something?_ at the same time she offers _fancy grabbing a drink?_, and the laughter that follows is bright, disbelieving.

His grin's wry, brim of his hat still twisting, wringing in his grasp. "So I think that's a yes?"

"I think it is," Charlotte echoes back, almost beaming, and there's something so _good_ about seeing her like this, easy and airy and happy (_instead of what?_ his mind replies, pushes the seed of something darker away, tucks it back and forgets it) as he offers his arm, the thrumming through his heart, veins, like a beat, an inescapable music.

* * *

Her palm slides in against his while he walks her back to her apartment that night, fleeting and cool and for just a second, fingers laced tight around his (_here I am, don't let go_); it's a feeling that burns white-hot in the best way and he doesn't forget it.

* * *

With her, there are ways he shares his life he never thought he would:

She seems him eyeing the used record shop around the corner from the restaurant during dinner and she follows, patient, as he wanders down the aisles, presses a still-in-cellophane Thelonious Monk album into her hands (_Straight, No Chaser, yeah?_, she questions, seemingly effortless, and he swears he falls in love all over again); they visit the Le Brea tar pits and Charlotte spells out dinosaur names, recounts the number of bones in each, digs up old stories of deserts and secrets buried in the dust; their first kiss takes them both by surprise, still tastes the chocolate-something gelato she'd ordered earlier while they wandered down the Strip, crumpled napkin still in one hand as he cups her face, tilts his lips just a fraction to brush hers (_you okay?_, Daniel asks, something in him bleeding worry, afterwards, peers into her eyes and _of course I am_, Charlotte laughs, tugging on the lapels of his jacket to pull him closer, _I'm with you, aren't I?_).

It's on a whim they spend a Saturday driving up the coast, winding highway curving along the ocean until the sky turns pink and then purple and goes dark, Charlotte playing DJ and feeding him coffee as he grips the wheel, tries to defend his music selection, and his knuckles brush against the long line of her leg while he's reaching for the shift, sandals abandoned and bare foot arched, delicate, on the dashboard, dress sliding up along an expanse of skin, more freckled with Indian summer sun.

_Sorry_, he mumbles, even though he doesn't mean it, almost swerves off the road in surprise when her fingers wander to his wrist, pull his hand back down and the material of her dress creases under his touch, flesh warm and still damp with the humidity of the day, trailing upwards and _pull over_, she tells him, never breaks her gaze.

He's got some blankets in the back and the seats fold down so it feels less like high school and there's the low hum of something classical Charlotte hadn't bothered to turn off and the passing drone of highway traffic as she laces fingers around his neck, face arched up and away, subtle cadence of her breath against his shoulder, hair unfurled and trailing like wildfire and he watches her half-closed eyes, half-parted mouth until the end, can't pull away from the sight of her.

(There are ways he surprises himself:)

"Wanna maybe, uh, go for a swim?"

She's still wrapped in a blanket, waiting on their breathing to slow, quirks one eyebrow at him; "now?"

"I mean, the ocean's right there, and I think I, um, think there was a turnoff for a beach just down the road," he explains, slings a thumb back towards the highway and slides on his t-shirt, then his boxers, jeans. Charlotte's looking at him, tenderness washing across her features, head tilted and grin sly and_you're on_, she says, slipping back into her dress and into the driver's seat, and when the darkness blooms in front of them, hangs long and low over the road, the black's not so much empty but full of possibilities, things left waiting to be.

* * *

"So."

Charlotte's friend, Miles, eyes with him with suspicion he doesn't bother hiding (_I thought you wanted me to meet your family_, Daniel had wondered when they'd show up at the bar, spotted him nursing a drink in the corner, and _he is my family, Dan_, she'd explained with surprising softness, at least on this continent), sucks back the last of his beer and stares at Daniel again, Charlotte against the background of the pub's dark-paneled wood, trying to balance three pint glasses between outstretched fingers.

"You play the piano." His smirk curls upwards like it's trying to be a smile and Dan fidgets - _yeah_ - and squirms in his seat, feels like he's back in college and passing painful minutes with Theresa's father at the kitchen table, and it's so hot in there, all of a sudden, too hot -

"And you're loaded."

"Uh, I guess so, but that's my father's company. I don't - I mean, I'm not ... I don't work there."

Miles folds his arms along the table, sinks towards him. "You know," he starts, pauses, tone almost bordering on conspiratorial, "I'll beat your ass if you do anything to hurt her."

It's like his lungs remember how to breath again in the crackling aftermath of the other man's words, expand against the clenching uncertainty, Miles' tone (maybe mean, halfway to joking, trying for intimidating) only making him laugher louder and "yeah, I know," he chuckles, grinning, the truth a relief in all the tension, before Charlotte appears at the head of the table, settles three drinks with a sigh that's all fond exasperation; _will you cut out the interrogation, Miles?_, then turning to him with a _sorry Dan, he does this with all the guys I date, like I need some kind of big-brother act._

That piercing dark gaze is on Daniel again (like he's striping away layer after layer, sees right through him), Miles silent for another beat and then leaning back in his chair, relaxing - "don't worry about it, Charlotte" - and when he goes to get the next round Charlotte moves against him, shoulder bumping his, murmurs in his ear; _congratulations on your passing grade._

* * *

His mother says the strangest things sometimes.

_You don't remember, do you?_ she asks him one day, side by side at her kitchen sink, scrubbing at dirty dishes and pans, the remnants of another Sunday family dinner bobbing in soapy water (her tradition, her_insistence_, even if between his rehearsals and his father's business trips and Penny's new romance there's half a dozen excuses every week why they're too busy to come).

She glances at him sidelong, bites her bottom lip - Eloise Widmore doesn't have nervous habits, a litany of tells and twitches like him; makes him straighten up, drop his dishcloth, fight back against the cold creeping up his spine - and _remember what, Mom?_ he squints in reply, watches her carefully, mystified.

It's relief - pure, unabashed - Daniel sees reflected back, only a split second where her expression is so open (if there's one thing he's ever thought of her is that she's measured; every word or reaction the product of careful foresight, calculation), so happy and lifted and light, like he's never seen her before, and then the steel's back, never unkind but always guarded, and _oh nothing, dear_, she smiles, rinses another dish and stacks it to dry in one swift movement, shifts the conversation to how Charlotte's latest expedition is going just as smoothly, and he doesn't know if it's a favour or a fallacy, what he's just been given.

* * *

The buzz and ring of the phone in his bedroom's night stillness is jarring, wrestling him quick from sleep; the line's tinny, broken and garbled so Charlotte's voice comes out in stops and starts, like some Morse code to be deciphered, when she calls from the outskirts of Cairo, in the desert for a three-month museum dig - _Charlotte, hey_, he mumbles, rubs at his eyes.

"Sorry love, I know it's the bloody middle of the night there."

"Are you - is everything okay?"

Daniel can hear her pause, deliberate, muffling noise as she shifts the phone; he sits up and rests against the headboard, clicks on a lamp, imagines the static between them like some tangible connection, bridging the distance; "everything's fine, Dan. I just ... I had a crap morning with the excavation is all."

It comes out more a chuckle than anything - _miss you too_ - and she exhales through a smile, laughs a little in return, and his alarm clock blinks four five six a.m. into the darkness before her murmured tone (_funding's a bloody mess but I think Pierre'll manage keep us here as long as we need_ spills out into the shadows of his room and _saw a fantastic exhibit at Helwan University the other day, reconstructing musical instruments from ancient Egypt, made me think of you_) disappears into the daylight; dialtone the only thing left when he finally says it (_I love you_), breathes life into something months and weeks and millions of seconds in the making, a secret song not ready for her to hear.

* * *

Two weeks later he gets a crinkled postcard in the mail, frayed around the edges and swollen from the heat, some ancient mural across the front and Charlotte's scrawl engraved along the back, sparse sentences, clipped, efficient thoughts (doesn't waste a breath or a word; it makes him smile) - _dig's finally going well all things considered, still not used to Egypt's heat after all this time._

_I love you (and I'm posting this before I have a chance to think about how ridiculous I am)._

_- C_

He manages to catch the 9:20 flight out of LAX that night, does a layover at Heathrow and lands the next morning, crashes at the hotel nearest the airport and shows up at the dig site a little dusty and disheveled, the back of his t-shirt and collar already prickled with sweat; someone manages to direct him to Charlotte and she drops her trowel, swiping dirty hands against her khakis when she hears her name, rises, her gaze going wide at the sight of him, and _I'm sorry if this is too much_, he greets in way of apology, freezes and waits for an answer.

It comes as she crooks her arms around his neck and he can feel a smile easing across her lips, _I'm glad you're here_, tells him the same in a different way that night, canvas of her tent rustling against cool night winds and moving above him, so slow it makes him ache, starts and stops and rolls her hips in a way that it's all he can do to say her name, lost against her chest, the sweep of her jaw as she leans over him, not everything else desperate to spill from his lips and it's too much, what he feels for her, so much he can't describe, like trembling notes never reaching the full thrush of sound, endless into the void -

(His grasp finds her waist, anchors himself to the feeling, drops from that dizzying high and she's there with too.)

- _I love you, I need you, please don't let me go._

* * *

It's a sudden discovery when she finds his notebook while they're moving her two-bedroom in Malibu into his beachfront home (_I liked being able to see the water_, is what she'd said, just another mirror between them, the waves lapping up along the shore outside his window, the lull and roar of the ocean, like a lullaby for him too), flips through the pages and pauses at the physics equations he'd scribbled there once-upon-a-time, back when he'd first spotted her at the museum.

(_My muse_, is what he still calls her, even though it makes her duck her head, almost blush, even though he means it more for music and his piles on piles of messy composition books than mathematical equations these days.)

"What's all this?" Charlotte asks, curiousity clearly piqued, pushes back a handful of sweaty curls as she stands. "You have a secret life as a physicist I don't know about, Dan?"

He scans the lines of dark ink, numbers and symbols he can barely decipher (_this is high-level stuff_, Donovan had whistled, impressed, _like Nobel-worthy stuff. I don't have two damn clues how you managed to write this in your sleep_) over her shoulder, memories or impressions of things he can't understand. It had felt like an urgency, seeing those formulas scratched out on his bedside table the next morning, when Desmond had appeared demanding his sister, like he was on the edge of answers, understanding what - between his family and his music - that missing piece was, that unfinished puzzle making him feel jagged, incomplete.

But then Charlotte had come into his life - not just some vague figure against his eyelids at night, not some cipher, symbol, in the museum's hallways, but a person; whole and real and if he'd loved her in the first seconds that he'd seen her it's a pale ghost of what he feels now, a phantom that can barely compare - and _don't worry_, something had whispered, _let go_.

"No clue." One hand slips under hers, cradles the book. "It's crazy, but I don't even remember writing it, not really. Just kind of ... came to me in the middle of the night, I guess?"

"Sleepwalking physics?" She crinkles her nose, kiss gentle at the corner of his mouth, drops the book in a cardboard box labeled _study_ with a shrug. "Stranger things and all that, I suppose."

_Yeah_, he murmurs in agreement, hears his own voice echo; _stranger things_.

* * *

He plays for her all the time, once they settle into his home, fingers wandering over the keys while she watches, curled up on the couch or seated beside him with toes drifting over the hardwood or standing idle in the doorway with her mug of tea, hip pressed against the frame, always listening; "you're a bloody genius, Daniel, I swear," she tells him with full conviction, traces a path along the black and white, still awed.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic debuts his newest composition (she'd mentioned reading Latin and he calls it_Rosea_) during their next fall performance, sits at the grand piano while the melody pours out and all he sees her - draped in a dark-coloured ballgown and hand clasped and eyes sparkling with tears - waiting in the wings.

* * *

The New Year's ball drops and the crowd's thick with sweat and smoke and skin-against-skin, bodies crushed in behind tables and up against the bar and along the dance floor, bits of confetti still littering ashtrays and countertops, streamers and balloons already wilting under the heat of the place even just past midnight.

Charlotte wanders back to their corner, cramped in next to Miles and Desmond and Penny (their wedding bands, a matching set, gleam a little in light thrown from the stage lights) as they trade resolutions, hands out plastic cups and wrenches the cork out of a champagne bottle - "practically had to flash the bartender for this, so you lot better enjoy it" - sloshing some into each; Desmond and Penny twine arms, take a sip, Miles tilts his glass in toast and gulps it back while Daniel watches.

Pushing past another group, she edges alongside him and passes a cup, raises hers.

"To new beginnings."

Dan does the same, sweeps her into a hug and takes a drink; new beginnings is what they have, and that's a good enough start - _I love you_, she says, feels like it's imprinted on his skin, a song he knows by heart - and that's good enough (more than) for him, for always.


End file.
